Restalrig.] DRURY?S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Douglas, Lord
of Bothwell, Galloway, and Annandale, Duke of
Touraine aud Marshal of France, resided in 1440,
in which year he died at Restalrig, of a malignant
fever.
In 1444 Sir John Logan of Restalrig was sheriff
of Edinburgh ; and in 1508 James Logan, of the
same place, was Sheriff-deputy.
Twenty-one years before the latter date an
calsay lyand, and the town desolate.? In the
following year, Holinshed records that ? the Lord
Grey, Lieutenant of the Inglis? armie,? during the
siege of Leith, ?ludged in the town of Lestalrike,
in the Dean?s house, and part of the Demi-lances
and other horsemen lay in the same towne.?
A little way north-westward of Restalrig, midway
between the place named Hawkhill and the upper
Quarry Holes, near the Easter Road, there occurred
on the 16th of June, 1571, a disastrous skirmish, de-
~
RESTALRIG CHURCH IN THE PRESENT DAYEnglish
army had encamped at Restalrig, under the
Duke of Gloucester, who spared the city at the
request of the Duke of Albany and on receiving
many rich presents fiom the citizens, while James
III., in the hand of rebel peers, was a species of
captive in the castle of Edinburgh.
In 1559 the then secluded village was the scene
of one of the many skirmishes that took place between
the troops of the Queen Regent and those
of the Lords of the Congregation, in which the
latter were baffled, ?driven through the myre at
Restalrig-worried at the Craigingate ? (i.e., the
Calton), and on the 6th of November,? ? at even
in the nycht,? they departed ?? furth of Edinburgh
to Lynlithgow, and left their artailzerie on the
signated the BZack Saturday, or Drury?s peace,?
as it was sometimes named, through the alleged
treachery of the English ambassador.
Provoked by a bravado on the part of the Earl
of Morton, who held Leith, and who came forth
with horse and foot to the Hawkhill, the Earl of
Huntly, at the head of a body of Queen Mary?s
followers, with a train of guns, issued out of Edinburgh,
and halted at the Quarry Holes, where he
was visited by Sir William Drury, the ambassador
of Queen Elizabeth, who had been with Morton in
Leith during the preceding night. His proposed
object was an amicable adjustment of differences,
to the end that no loss of life should ensue between
those who were countrymen, and, in too
I34 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalng.
many instances, relatives and friends. With all
the affected zeal of a peacemaker, this gentleman
(whose house stood in Drury Lane, off the Strand
in London), proposed terms which Huntly deemed
satisfactory ; but the next point to be considered
was, which party should first march off the field.
On this, both parties were absurdly obstinate.
Huntly maintained that Morton, by an aggressive
display, had drawn the Queen?s troops out of the
city ; while Morton, on the other hand, charged the
Highland Earl with various acts of hostility and
insult. Dnuy eventually got both parties to promise
to quit the ground at a given signal, ?and
that signal,? he arranged, ?shall be the throwing
up of my hat.?
This was agreed to, and before Drury was halfway
between the Hawkhill and the ancient quarries,
up went his plumed hat, and away wheeled
Huntly?s forces, marching for the city by the road
that led to the Canongate, without the least suspicion
of the treachery of Drury, or Morton, whose
soldiers had never left their ground, and who cow,
rushing across the open fields with shouts charged
with the utmost fury the queen?s men, ?? who were
retiring with all the imprudent irregularity and confusion
which an imaginary security and exultation
at having escaped a sanguinary conflict were calculated
to produce.?
Thus treacherously attacked, they were put to
flight, and were pursued with cruel and rancorous
slaughter to the very gates of the city. The
whole road was covered with dead and wounded
men, while Lord Home, several gentlemen of high
position, and seventy-two private soldiers, a pair
of colours, several horses, and two pieces of cannon,
were, amid great triumph, marched into Leith in the
afternoon.
This was not the only act of treachery of which
Sir William Drury was guilty. He swore that he
was entirely innocent, and threw the whole blame
on Morton; but though an ambassador, so exas.
perated were the people of Edinburgh against him,
that he had afterwards to quit the city under a
guard to protect him from the infuriated mob.
The Laird of Restalrig was among those who
surrendered with Kirkaldy of Grange, in 1573, when
the Castle of Edinburgh capitulated to Morton;
but he would seem to have been pardoned, as
no record exists of any seventy practised upon him.
In #some criminal proceedings, in I 5 76, the sheet
of water here is designated as Restalrig Loch,
when a woman named Bessie Dunlop was tried
for witchcraft and having certain interviews with
?? ane Tam Reid,? who was killed at the battle of
Pinkie. Having once ridden with her husband to
Leith to bring home meal, ?ganging afield to
tether her horse at Restalrig Loch, there came ane
company of riders by, that made sic a din as if
heaven and earth had gane together; and, incontinent
they rade into the loch, with mony
hideous rumble. Tarn tauld [her] it was the
Gude Wights, that were riding in middle-eard.?
For these and similar confessions, Bessie was
consigned to the flames as a witch.
During the prevalence of the pestilence, in 1585,
James Melville says that on his way to join the
General Assembly at Linlithgow he had to pass
through Edinburgh ; that after dining at Restalrig at
eleven o?clock, he rode through thecity from the Water
Gate to the West Port, ? in all whilk way, we saw
not three persons, sae that I mis-kenned Edinburgh,
and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.?
In 1594 Restalrig was the scene of one of those
stormy raids that the ?mad Earl of Bothwell?
caused so frequently, to the torment of James VI.
The earl, at the head of an armed force, was in
Leith, and broke out in open rebellion, when,
on the 3rd of April, the king, after sermon, summoned
the people of Edinburgh in arms, and moved
towards Leith, from whence Bothwell instantly
issued at the head of 500 mounted men-atms,
and took up a position at the Hawkhill near
Restalrig. Fearing, however, the strength of the
citizens, he made a detour, and galloped through
Duddingstone. Lord Home with his lances followed
him to ?the Woomet,? says Birrel, probably
meaning Woolmet, near Dalkeith, when Bothwell
faced about, and compelled him to retire in turn,
but not without bloodshed.
In February, 1593, at Holyrood, Robert Logan,
of Restalrig, was denounced for not appearing to
answer for his treasonable conspiracy and trafiicking
? with Francis, sum tyme Earl of Bothwell ; ? and
in the June of the following year he was again
denounced as a traitor for failing to appear and
answer for the conduct of two of his vassals, Jockie
Houlden and Peter Craick, who had despoiled
Robert Gray, burgess in Edinburgh of Lg50.
It was in this year that the remarkable indenture
was formed between him and Napier of Merchiston
to search for gold in Fast Castle (the ?Wolf?s Crag?
of the Master of Ravenswood), a fortress which lie
had acquired by his marriage with an heiress of
the Home family, to whom it originally belonged.
Logan joined the Earl of Gowrie in the infamous
and mysterious conspiracy at Perth, in the year
1600. It was proposed to force the king into ir
boat at the bottom of the garden of Gowrie
House, which the river Tay bordered, and from?
thence conduct him by sea to Logan?s inacces
